About Last Night: A Food Truck Pop-Up At Cook (With Pictures!)

There are three things that need to be said right up front about last night’s Foobooz Neighborhood Pop-Up at Cook.

Thing 1: We should do a food truck pop-up every month because, apparently, working entirely from a truck that could be quickly overturned by an angry mob turned insane by bland tacos or bad cupcakes makes a person into a fast cook, a skillful talker and a person who cooks cheeseburgers or roti like their lives depended on it.

Thing 2: Speaking of roti, I could eat the Trinidadian roti from Mini Trini at every meal, every day for a month and not feel like I was missing out on anything at all. As a matter of fact, I would feel bad for the rest of you chumps who only got to eat caviar, lobster tails and pie all day.

Thing 3: Next time I have to leave one of these events early, I’m making the guy doing dessert go first.

Oh, and one more. Apparently, if you can steal borrow a good enough bottle of vodka from under the counter, virtually any drink you mix will cause a group of strangers to think that you are a gifted bartender–even when, if fact, you are just a food writer who happened to tend a little bar at swingers parties in the basement of a Chinese restaurant a hundred years ago. But I digress…

So yes, last night–on one of the warmest spring nights in history–we decided to help out all the snowbound Philadelphians by bringing some of the city’s best food trucks indoors for one night only. Honest to Kabbalah Monster, when Art and I were planning this thing, we figured that there’d still be snowdrifts on the streets and ice in the winds whipping across Rittenhouse Square. We thought that people would go nuts for the chance at sampling from a bunch of different food trucks without having to brave the weather. Little did we know that what we’d actually end up with was a beautiful ending to a perfect, 70-degree day–a night just made for strolling the streets and eating outdoors.

But still, where else would you get the chance to eat from Say Cheese, the Mini Trini, Lucky Old Souls and Sugar Philly without ever having to get up out of your chair? It was a helluva night, with lots of booze, lots of laughs, some truly unbelievable food (Mini Trini’s roti was so good that I’m tempted to start a petition to get them let back into Love Park, like, tomorrow) being made by cooks who, for the most part, had never before cooked in a professional kitchen that wouldn’t roll away if they forgot to chock the tires. The snaps below are just a taste of what went on. You want the real thing? Get out and visit these trucks NOW. You can find contact info for all of them at the bottom of the page.

A mini-cheeseburger from Lucky Old Souls with Lancaster jack, homemade ketchup and sauteed onions

The above burger, being assembled.

The Susana Banana–ricotta, Nutella and bananas–from Say Cheese.

Making roti, step 1

Making roti, step 2 (there is no picture of a finished roti because I ate mine before Art could snap a photo).